31 Days of Halloween: Don't Move

2026, Maclain Nelson (Haul Out the Halloween) -- download

Holey Crow. I wasn't imagining things, when I commented, "This feels like what a PG-rated horror movie made by Hallmark would be..." 

Nelson is literally a director of Hallmark movies.

I knew it was going to be low-budget, but honestly, I was hoping for something along the lines of Tremors and if "sharks" are included in our monster roster for the last few years, then definitely "spiders" are. I chose not to watch the American remake of Vermines, but this looked like it could be some fun, and it had Lyndsy Fonseca.

Whoof. It was quite the stinker.

It starts on a surprisingly grim note, having Megan Forrester (Fonseca, Agent Carter) lose her son and husband to a fire in a carnival haunted-house ride. The two literally burn to death before her eyes, and she is left with scars to remind her of it forever. One Year Later, good Church Going Megan is being pestered by Pastor Rizzo (Tom Cavanagh, Ed) to join them on the yearly camping trip. She's hesitant, as only a year has passed and she is still steeped in grief, but the very talkative and friendly pastor finally convinces her. The other campers are typical low-budget casting, as in there are almost none, and include the pastor's daughter Emma (Hunter King, A Royal Corgi Christmas), her new BF Ryan (Joseph Lee Anderson, MacGruber), the Winstons and their grandson Connor, and all are being led into the woods by "accomplished" woodsman Paul DeLuca (Rob Riggle, Code 3). Oh, lets not forget Emma's ex-BF Ricky Vargas (Russel "Russ" Vitale, Trap), who convinces the pastor to let him come along.

Now, first sign of this being Hallmarkie level low-budget should have been that So Fucking White Xian character building. Emma's ex Ricky is a "gang thug drug dealer" and Latino, while her new BF is also a "gang banger" and Black. The Winstons are black, so they can die first. Ricky wants on the trip because he has to smuggle drugs somewhere, but the plot is so fucking thin, its never explained what he is trying to do. Sure, he can get he heroin onto the Church Bus but.... what then? Is he meeting other thugs in the woods? They never say. It's just "Ricky is a drug dealer," and "Ryan is big and violent."

And yes, so very very Xian. And nice. Everyone is so fucking NICE. Emma, who dates only gang bangers, is still a Good Girl whom her daddy loves and trusts, and ... well, she's not rebellious at all, beyond who she dates? She even sings campfire hymns with him. Even Ricky, who is only pretending, so as to come along, is still nice to everyone, especially when he gets to become the hero. OK, Ryan is a bit of a one-note jerk, but that's it.

So, being comedic, DeLuca is only played as a joke. But he's not funny. Not at all. He is considered a woodsy guy but gets them lost, immediately. Not sure why Rizzo didn't catch that. Anywayz, they end up in a remote stretch of woods where there is a Giant Spider stalking them. The problem is that the thin grove of trees they are in could never withstand the weight of a Giant Spider hiding high in its canopy. The trees are all barely 10 years old, thin spindly things. And the audio foley they use to represent the spider is.... all jangly and mechanical sounding. Anywayz, it runs extension-cord thick spiderwebs everywhere which INSTANTLY draws it to them but which they can step over easily. And when we get to the CGI portion of the movie, it was likely done on someone's PC, and not by someone who knows what they are doing, nor someone who knows how a spider's mouth look. If this was late-90s Stargate I wouldn't have been so petty about the effects, but ... even Asylum does better.

We accept the lack of dialogue or characterization in Hallmarkies because that is left to the Love Interest story; they are generally the only characters who say anything beyond a few words. If this was an experiment to apply the Low Effort of such film making, to another genre (as it has been successful in the Cozy Murder Mystery) it has failed. At the very least, I can say the movie didn't pull its punches in killing off the cast, like a Good Horror Movie should do, and Fonseca does give it a good God Fearing job, but.... whoof, just whoof.